Generally, a human has multiple senses that operate to perceive and gather information regarding their surroundings or an object or system that they are interacting with. Such senses have some defined parameters with respect to the sensory stimulus that may be perceived. For example, the sense of sight is traditionally used to visually perceive information, while the sense of touch may be traditionally used to perceive the physical nature of an item such as its texture or shape. To convey information, audio-visual methods and devices have traditionally been used.
In some applications, it is desirable to convey to a human various information in a nontraditional fashion. That is, it may be useful to convey information to a human using a sense that is normally traditionally reserved for gathering another type of information. This may be done so by creating an illusion with one sense, for example touch, that conveys information that might traditionally be perceived by other senses such as audiovisual senses. The use of touch for communication is sometimes referred to as tactile communication. For example, such tactile communication, the physical mode of it, and various devices for doing the same are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,719,561 and 6,326,901, both entitled “Tactile Communication Device and Method” (owned by the current inventor). Both patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The disclosed devices create the illusion of motion to deliver information to a person through touch that might traditionally be perceived through a sense of sight. Each of those patents discloses actuator systems that produce the illusion of linear continuity motion for the purpose of creating alphanumeric characters and for position localization (i.e., instrument landing system). These devices generally involve individual actuators that are activated to provide the tracing of an alphanumeric pattern and/or symbol. However, such systems are not able to produce a 3-D illusion of depth contour and shape, etc.
Generally, the ability to perceive or feel three-dimensional contour, shape, depth and/or height of a contoured surface on the skin or another area, such as a mucous membrane, has generally only been possible by applying the contoured surface against the skin or membrane. Alternatively, such perception might be facilitated by applying the skin surface or other surface, such as the fingertip, against the contoured surface and by moving the fingertip across the contoured surface. In those various scenarios, a person is able to determine the shape of the three-dimensional object and the surface characteristics.
Devices do exist that allow a human extremity or a digit to move in space as if moving over a surface, but fine details of the contour of an object are not perceived. Also, with such devices, the extremity or digit must actually move in space in order to “feel” an object. In addition, a tactile illusion, such as the tactile phi phenomenon, is not produced. One example of a device that apparently gives force feedback but not a tactile 3-D illusion is the PHANToM device, which is defined at the following website: http://www.hoise.com/vmw/02/articles/vmw/LV-VM-11-02-35.html). Therein, the device is described generally as like a pen which can slide across a surface in a VR world. You can feel the texture and density of the surface. Pushing on the pen sends data representing forces through the Internet, which can be interpreted by another PHANToM and felt on the other end. A person feels the resulting force, and also gets a sense of the quality of the object you are feeling, whether it is soft or hard, woodlike or fleshy.
Another device is designated as the Thimble Gimble, and described at the website http://www.ntsc.navv.mil/Programs/Tech/Virtual/VETT/transformations.cfm. A limitation of such a device is noted in that it is mounted on a fixed component in the real environment and, therefore, does not move or rotate with movements of a trainee. To use the device, the trainee must move to it. A trainee-mounted controller is noted as possible, but may be awkward and may interfere with the training task.
As such, no devices or methods exist that are able to produce the non-veridical illusion of three-dimensional contour on the surface of the body, other than those physical methods described above which have various drawbacks or fall short of conveying three-dimensional surface contours.